This is a record of my journey as a Muslim. I used to be Catholic and belonged to a missionary organisation. After my conversion, I sat on the board of a Muslim converts' organisation and specialised in da'wah programmes, convert management, interfaith issues and apostasy cases. I am an initiate of a Sufi order. As such, the articles and writings tend to cover these areas.
All the Arabic and graphics could not have been done without the help of my wife, Zafirah.

Thursday, 24 May 2012

The Moths & the Candle

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ
ٱلرَّحِيمِ

The following
is translated and adapted from the works of Shaykh Abu Hamid bin Abu Bakr
Ibrahim (q.s.), better known as Shaykh
Farid ad-Din ‘Aththar (q.s.). He is a famous ‘ashiq and ‘arif.

One night the
moths gathered together, tormented by the desire to unite themselves with the
candle. All of them said, “We must find
one who can give us some news of that for which we seek so earnestly.”

One of the
moths went to a candle afar off and saw within the light of a candle. He came back and told the others what he had
seen, and began to describe the candle as intelligently as he was able to do. But the wise moth, who was chief of their
assembly, observed, “He has no real information to give us of the candle.”

Another moth
visited the candle. He passed close to
the light and drew near to it. With his
wings, he touched the flames of that which he desired; the heat of the candle
drove him back and he was vanquished. He
also returned, and revealed something of the mystery, in explaining a little of
what union with the candle meant, but the wise moth said to him, “Thine
explanation is of no more real worth than that of thy comrade.”

A third moth
rose up, intoxicated with love, to hurl himself violently into the flame of the
candle. He threw himself forward and
stretched out his antennae toward the flame. As he entered completely into its embrace, his
members became red like the flame itself. When the wise moth saw from afar that the
candle had identified the moth with itself, and had given to it its own light,
he said, “This moth has accomplished his desire; but he alone comprehends that
to which he has attained. None others
knows it, and that is all.”

This short
fable illustrates the different levels of knowledge. They are the knowledge of certainty, the
vision of certainty and the Reality of Certainty. Only one of it is real. The others are merely perception and fantasy. The knowing of God is the knowing of Him
through Him. There is nothing to
quantify. There is no ‘be.’ There is only becoming.